Eve of Christmas
by kuragari nikkou
Summary: Part of my Days of Christmas project. Karane sees Zelda giving a gift to Pipit and gets the wrong idea. Warnings: PipitXKarane. Short story is short. Pre-game.


All characters © their respective owners

-ONONTHEYSEND

Akumu: Zzz…Zzz-AH! I mean, on the eve of Christmas my true love wrote for me!

Warnings: PipitXKarane. Pre-game. I'm not all that fond of this pair, but the idea came, and I had to act on it. I don't have a lot of time to write this. Also, short story is short.

-ONWITHOUTEND

She wasn't stalking him. She just happened to be walking along the same path as he was, and she spontaneously decided to hide behind this tree when she saw Zelda walking towards him. Now she was just eavesdrop—er…she was just feeding her healthy curiosity. Yeah, that's all…

"Did you do something with your hair?" Pipit asked her. She hoped that Pipit was only noticing that Zelda was wearing ribbons now and not just complementing her on how pretty she looked with them.

"Yeah." The blonde replied, holding one of the ribbon-tied locks, "do you think they look good on me?"

"They're a nice color." He smiled. Karane hoped he meant _only_ the color.

"Thanks. Link gave them to me for the Secret Santa event." She explained. "I asked him if he thought they looked good on me, and he didn't say _anything_." She seemed to pout at that. Karane guessed that Link must've been struck speechless or something like that. He had been in love with her for as long as she could remember, after all.

'_Which is why you shouldn't steal Zelda away, Pipit.'_ She thought to herself as her nails gripped the bark of the tree.

"Well, he's never been good with words…" Pipit thought out loud.

"I guess…" Zelda agreed. "Anyway," she continued as she pulled out a wrapped box from her pack, "I just wanted to give you this. Merry Christmas!"

'_W-why is she giving him that?!'_ Karane demanded mentally. _'What about Link, Zelda?! You can't do that to him!'_

"_You_ were my Secret Santa?" Pipit asked even though he accepted the box anyway. "I'll bet Link was disappointed about that…" he added quietly.

'_Ohhhh.'_ Karane realized as a blush spread across her face. Embarrassed, she looked away for a moment. Come to think of it, she had to give her Secret Santa gift to someone too. Groose, if she remembered correctly. She should probably head to the bazaar soon if she was going to get this out of the way.

"Thanks, Zelda. Merry Christmas to you too!" He waved good-bye to her as he turned around and walked off…in the direction that she was in!

"A-ah! Pipit! Fancy meeting you here!" She spoke a bit too quickly and a bit too loudly to sound like normal conversation. She just hoped that her face had changed back to its normal hue. "Er…I was just on my way to the guy I was giving my gift to in the Secret Santa event!" She hastily explained.

"Karane?" He looked at her as if he hadn't noticed her, his attention on the gift in his hands. "Could you maybe wait a second? I've been looking all over for you!"

"R-really?" She asked.

'_Could this be a love confession?'_ she asked herself.

"I'm your Secret Santa." He explained as he pulled out a wrapped box from his pack. "Merry Christmas!"

"O-oh…" She said as she accepted the box. "Thanks." She then unwrapped her gift to find a pair of earrings. They were the same shade as her eyes and small and round and pretty, but she still felt pretty down about how she had gotten her hopes up too high.

"You don't like them?" he asked, noticing her expression. He was sure that he looked all over Skyloft to find just the right shade of polished pebble. He even went out of his way to gather small metallic materials to get them custom made into earrings.

"Oh, no! They're really pretty!" She assured him. She put them on, one on the left, and then one on the right. "How do I look?"

"Your hair's covering them." He laughed as pointed out.

'_You still look great as always, though.'_ He added to himself.

"Oh, they are?" She asked as she tried to brush the strands away.

"It's fine." He assured her. "You should save them for a special occasion since you already look good without them." He advised half-heartedly even though he sounded pretty confident.

'_I'd like it if you could wear them all the time, though.'_ He didn't say out loud.

"Oh, all right." She nodded. "Merry Christmas!" She said as she waved good-bye.

'_He thought I looked good!'_ She walked away cheerily. Nothing about this day could go wrong.

Elsewhere…

"Any minute now, Zelda will come bursting through this door, proclaiming her ever-growing love for me! And then she'll give my Christmas gift." Groose continued to tell himself as time passed.

"But, Groose," Cawlin piped up, "how do you know Zelda's your Secret Santa?"

"She has to be, right? Who else could it be?!" The red-haired pompadour-sporting resident of Skyloft stubbornly asserted.

"It's probably not Link." Strich chimed in. "He was Zelda's Secret Santa."

"Whaaat?!" Groose asked incredulously. "When…how did you figure this out?!"

"He gave her some ribbons a while ago." The blond explained. "She looked _really_ happy when she put them on too."

"NO!" Groose yelled. "I won't allow that! Zelda, I'm coming to receive your gift and your love!" He declared as he charged out of his room. Cawlin sighed.

"We should probably follow him." He said even though he had already started running.

"Yeah." Strich agreed as he too started running.

-THEIRHARPISHTONETOEVERYHOME

Akumu: Zzz…mrgh…! I couldn't think of a thing to write. Sorry for the quality. And I apologize to the Groose fans since he has the most character evolution in the game, but this is pre-game, so he's not a cool guy yet.

Holiday Moral: Be careful about your expectations. Sometimes you might just get them, but never know.


End file.
